A senior official in Somalia’s powerful Islamist movement claimed responsibility on Thursday for a car-bomb attack near the seat of the weak Somali government, saying it hit an Ethiopian military post.
The official, a senior member of the Islamists’ security branch, said the attack had killed at least 24 Ethiopian troops as Somali police commander Ali Hussein said two suicide car bombs had detonated, killing at least 12.
”There was an attack on an Ethiopian military post in Baidoa,” the official told Agence France-Presse on condition of anonymity. ”What we know is that at least two dozen were killed.”
”Six civilians were wounded after the Ethiopians opened fire on the people around the checkpoint,” the official said.
A second official, Mohamed Ibrahim Said Bilal, commander for the Islamists in Al Bayan in the Bay region where Baidoa is located, said it was the work of ”Islamic suicide bombers”.
In Baidoa, police commander Hussein said the blasts were the work of suicide bombers who exploded their vehicles at the Boynunay checkpoint on the town’s eastern edge. — AFP
